I’m currently writing a project/package that has using GSL in its source file and GSL = "92c[...]" under Project.toml’s [deps] section. GSL.jl is the wrapper for the GNU Scientific Library (GSL), which is explicitly part of the GNU project, and both GSL and GSL.jl are released under the GPL. I’m inclined to release my project under the MIT License, but I’m unsure if that’s legally allowed. I’ve read through the GNU page for GPL associated works, and derivatives/conveyances, and a lot of it works around providing binaries as well, and the terms around source distribution seems murky to me. However, I’ll only be releasing the .jl source files in GitHub (and hopefully submitting the package to the Julia General registry), and I’m not sure what licensing requirements I must adhere to.
My work is of particular interest to academics. While I’m not opposed to releasing under GPL, it may limit what people can do with my code, because it may also come in proprietary use.
Pages I’ve checked for an answer:
- Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
- Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU GPL v2.0 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
- Source-only distribution of MIT-licensed project which depends on GPL library - Open Source Stack Exchange
- Licensing Julia Wrappers
- licensing - GPL-3.0 library in MIT project - Open Source Stack Exchange
- licensing - Do I have to open source my project if I use a piece of code licensed under GPL as a part of my project? - Stack Overflow
TL;DR:
- Using a GPL v3 Licensed Julia library as a dependency
- Want to release my code under MIT License
- Possible?
As an alternative, the only functionality I need from GSL.jl is its ability to compute associated Legendre polynomials and its first and second derivatives for many (ℓ,m) at once, so if someone knows of an alternative with more compatible licensing, please let me know! 